From being to Becoming!

I watched this plant bear flowers in our garden. The two buds became fully open from being buds. The plant's nature is to bear flower. Its nurture comes from the soil where it is rooted. 

During conversations with different people in the recent weeks this theme came up. 

How are we to nurture children who are endowed with abilities which are nascent or subdued. 

It is the story from a mother, which helped me to get a full glimpse of human response to help a child discover her natural instinct. 

This mother noticed that whenever her nine months old daughter heard the mother sing or listened to singing during family prayer time or her older sibling payed with sound makers, this girl was intensely attentive. So the mother used singing as a way to pacify her daughter whenever she showed any signs of discomfort. 

At two years, her daughter would use her sound makers rhythmically while the family sang. At two and half years she showed interest to use the keyboard to make random sounds. That was when the mother knew that her daughter was musically orientated. 

At seven, she now plays key board, sings and is at a junior choir in the school. She can sing solo. She remembers songs and tunes. The family singing time is the sought after time by both children. Her father would bring children's books of rhymes and download children's action songs. This mother told me that she came across children's action songs ASHIRVAD uploaded in the U tube, during the time I was at my previous work place. Those songs were sung by professionals in the department to introduce parents to have a child's corner at home where play and singing can take place.   

I heard this story with a sense of awe and wonder. It was a good illustration of how nature and nurture had a confluence to initiate a girl to a habit of singing, which was nurtured by deliberate planning by her parents.  

What fascinated me even more is that this mother having been fond of singing, used to sing regularly by keeping her one hand on her abdomen form the fourth month of pregnancy. She wondered at that time that whether the baby moved  more in her abdomen! A singing mother created a singing daughter. 

This is childhood formation. 

I wonder whether parents can extend a similar efforts to other domains of childhood formation!

A family used to hang up all the scribbling that their son did form the age of one year. At five years, he draws three dimensionally from memory of what he sees. One family mentioned. me that they have about fifty books of their child's drawing over the last three years.  This child now attends an art class once a week to advance in sketching, drawing and painting. 

Let me suggest that children are waiting to blossom. The key to nurture their resident skills lies in the hands of parents and the family. 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)